Getting on top of storage will help sell your home faster and may even earn a better price. A neatly organised house immediately creates the calm atmosphere and welcoming ambiance that buyers find appealing.
Create Space
Most of our possessions probably don’t see the light of day from one year’s end to the next. They lurk in cupboards and drawers, sometimes taking up so much room there is no space for the things we do use.
Those things all mean something. Selling your home shouldn’t mean you have to ditch all the precious, memory-invoking possessions you’ve gathered over the years.
A clever way of decluttering is through self storage. Rooms or lockers are affordable, and there are no long term lock-ins. If you need to create a more spacious atmosphere, but don’t want to permanently lose the things you love but don’t use, this could be your life saver.
Tackle Problem Rooms
Areas such as bathrooms and children’s bedrooms spring to mind. These rooms tend to be home to myriad small items that are hard to control.
Storage in children’s rooms is relatively easy:
· Beds can be brilliant. Ottoman beds, cabin or captain beds, or divans with drawers can hide many a collection without taking up additional floor space. Choosing a high-rise bed will also provide a desk area, offering space for craft, homework or the TV if your child has one of their own.
· Stackable storage cubes can be used as stools as well as bookshelves or display areas for figures or other items. Used as bookcases placed in a corner, it’s a neat way to create a ‘quiet’ nook for reading.
· Colourful coat pegs at child height offer more than just somewhere to hang coats. Dangle baskets or laundry bags to provide homes for small soft toys.
Bathrooms can be a little more problematic, but not impossibly so:
· A second shower curtain rod installed over the bath but close to the wall, and outfitted with a few S-hooks provides hanging space for bottle caddies or body buffs and loofahs.
· Fit upside down brackets (the decorative ones that normally go beneath) to the ends of shelves. They look stylish and help stop loose items rolling off or, in the case of stacked towels, draping over edges.
· Replace a full length mirror with one that doubles as a storage cabinet. Inside is yards of shelving for all your bottles and bathroom supplies.
Use the Vertical Spaces
We tend to neglect wall space above head height, but it’s prime real estate for getting creative with shelving. Layer shelves on top of each other for books or CDs and video games, instead of taking up room with floor standing units, or run a single shelf right around the room at picture rail height to show off groups of collectibles or photos.
Other vertical spaces we ignore are those around doorways, but these often narrow areas can also be turned into storage areas with bespoke shelving. An added charm is that the finished effect creates a recessed doorway look.
Find the Secret Places
All homes have them; you just have to know where to look. Two places you could probably make more use of include under the stairs and under the kitchen cabinets.
Stair cupboards can be dark and cramped, but you can hang hooks in there, run a couple of shelves, or buy a plastic drawer unit to help corral small items. Hang a battery LED light and the space becomes much more useful.
Those areas under the cabinets in kitchens are nearly always closed off with kickboards, but you can remove them and fit hinged or sliding doors instead. The storage space won’t give a lot of height, but it’s useful for long or flat items such as giant roasting trays you hardly ever use but need now and then, kids’ skateboards or bats, or even brooms and mops if there is nowhere else.
It’s all about finding spaces for awkward items so drawers and cupboards look neat and organised. When you’re showing potential buyers around your home, you can never be sure they won’t peep inside cupboards. And if you can show them a neat but homely house, they get the impression the place has plenty of storage and is comfortable to live in.